Highways in Review

ALTHOUGH Arizona is the youngest state in the Union, its highway department is one of the oldest. On march 18, 1909, the Territorial Legislature approved an Act creating a Territorial Highway Department. This Act also provided a specific tax for the purpose of raising a "State Road Tax Fund" for fiscal years 1909-1910 and 1910-1911. This fund was continued in operation for the year 1911-1912 by an Act of Congress approved June 20, 1910. When Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912, the Act was repealed by the State Road Law approved June 20, 1912.

From Thing in Swaddling Clothes a Great Transportation System Grows

The state law provided an annual running appropriation of $250,000. I might mention at this time that the Phoenix office of the Department consisted of a State Engineer, a combination office and bridge engineer, a chief clerk, and two or three clerks and draftsmen. There are now employed, exclusive of the High way Patrol and Motor Vehicle Departments, some 150 people. During Territorial days a tentative highway system had been adopted, consisting of a road from Yuma to Clifton in Greenlee County, and one from Douglas to the Grand Canyon. Quoting from the report of the first State Engineer, "the routes selected had become fixed to a certain extent by the construction of several units of their length and, though not meeting with entire approval, they had also become fixed in the public mind as state highways. It was, therefore, thought best not to make any changes in their location as it would undoubtedly lead to others by succeeding administrations, resulting in State Highways that would start nowhere and end nowhere, thus defeating one object of the State Road Appropriation a state system of roads composed of coordinating county units connecting every county seat in the state. After the passage of the present State Road Law, June 20,

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS JANUARY, 1937

1912, which divides the State Road Fund among the various counties, it was necessary to select other state highways traversing those counties not on the two previously selected routes. This has been done by the several Boards of Supervisors and the State Engineer. This proposed system of state highways comprises approximately 1,500 miles of roads connecting all the county seats and nearly all of the principal towns in the state."

Mr. Lamar Cobb, the first State Highway Engineer of Arizona, should be given tribute for his foresight in planning so well and his establishing a precedent of keeping the system to as small of mileage as possible, and at the same time serving the centers of population. The precedent he established has been followed in the main by his successors to the present time so that even now our State Highway System has only some 3,500 miles— 500 of which have been added during the present fiscal year.

Much has been said in the last few years about the so-called farm-to-market roads. The popular conception of this type of road is a road from a farmer's home to the nearest state or county highway, or to the nearest railhead. In 1912 this was true in this state, at least as far as Maricopa County was concerned. The farmer here was in the mud, and it was necessary to get his product either to Phoenix or to the railroad. Maricopa planned well along those lines. However, the State Highway System planned by this department is also in every sense of the word a farm-to-market system. The two principal industries of this state for several years have been mining and agriculture. Our agricultural centers have been located in fertile valleys and controlled only by the possibility of placing water on the land, while our markets, within the state, were the mining centers situated in the more mountainous sections. The railroads were planned either as transcontinental means of transportation or for the purpose of hauling the products of our mines to the nearest market. Agriculture, being developed after the railroads were built, the farmers found themselves handicapped in reaching the markets within the state. The highways supplied that need, thanks to the planning of the pioneers in the Arizona Highway Department. Later these highways were used in conjunction with those of our neighboring states in reaching practically all markets within a radius of 500 to 1,000 miles. The hauls to the east coast have not as yet subjected the railroads to highway competition.In looking over the report of the State Engineer, I find that he states that in 1909 only $200,000 was expended on all road work on the state system. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, $7,750,000 were expended by the State Highway Department.The first monies appropriated by the State Legislature were levied as a direct property tax with the proviso that 75% of the monies must be spent in the county from which the tax was collected, and 25% could be spent over the state at large. You can readily see that under such a set-up, it would have been impossible to do any extensive road work in the poorer counties. From time to time the Legislature also made special appropriations, principally for bridges. For example, the Legislature would decide that $50,000 should build a bridge across a certain river at a certain locality. The bridge department, which was in its infancy and unfamiliar with conditions in the Southwest, would design a bridge for a certain load capacity. In order to build the bridge at the designated location for the designated amount and with the load capacity insisted on by the bridge departMention if the amount appropriated by the Legislature was insufficient and it most always was-there were only two things we could do either shorten the bridge or take chances on foundations. We always did one or the other sometimes both. I'll always remember the Springs of 1915 and 1916-our attempt at putting the Gila River at Florence back under the bridge-unsuccessfully.During this period the financing of the system was entirely from a direct property tax. This was before the first Federal-aid Bill and before the first gas tax. In stating that the roads during this time were financed entirely from property tax, I am not entirely correct for I find that motor vehicle fees accrued to the state highway fund. These fees, however, amounted to only about $25,000 to $60,000 a year. In addition, if the State Engineer elected to use prison labor on highway construction, the cost of feeding the prisoners up to the amount expended per prisoner at the prison was borne by the State Prison. The constitution of the state did not allow the is-suance, by the state, of bonds for public improvement.

Up to the time the Federal-aid Act of 1917 was enacted, there was no serious thought given to the maintenance of highways, although the project engineers did see that roads in the vicinity of their construction were dragged after a rain. No special funds were set aside for this purpose, however.

On March 8, 1917, the Legislature passed an Act assenting to the provisions of the Federal-aid Law, so the first Federal-aid for highways in Arizona was assured. I might mention at this time that Federal-aid Project No. 1 was the lengthening of the bridge across the Gila River at Florence mentioned previously.

About this time a law was enacted to allow the several counties to bond themselves and to organize County Highway Commissions. Maricopa voted bonds to the sum of $8,500,000 and let contracts for an extensive system of roads. It was, I believe, the largest single contract in the United States up to that time. The contract called for the construction of (Continued on Page 18)